In the e-book war, Amazon has conceded another battle to its line of publishing frenemies.

Amazon struck a deal with publisher HarperCollins that reportedly gives up some of the tech giant's dominance on how much consumers pay for books online. While Amazon has been holding prices low, publishers want higher prices to cover their costs. For years, Amazon and CEO Jeff Bezos have said that $9.99 is the appropriate price for ebooks. This lower price point, they argue, encourages consumers to buy more books and therefore spend more money in total.

The deal, which HarperCollins confirmed, allows the publisher to retain the ability to set the prices on its ebooks, according to the Wall Street Journal. The agreement, between HarperCollins and Amazon, covers several years of sales in both digital and hardcopy books, according to the report.

HarperCollins and Amazon seem to have overcome an impasse in their negotiations. HarperCollins is one of the publishers who initially tried to take some power over online sales of e-books, even launching its own online store to sell books — including the widely beloved Narnia series by C.S. Lewis — directly to readers in 2013. Entering into a dispute with Amazon would risk HarperCollins alienating the biggest name in book retail just ahead of the release of Harper Lee's book "Go Set a Watchman."

The resolution of its agreement with HarperCollins now means that Amazon has new agreements with most of the biggest five book publishers, including Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster. Just a year ago, it seemed that might not happen.

The history of publishers' attempts to take on Amazon

Amazon's growth into a dominant force in the publishing industry — Amazon is estimated to have 65% of the ebook market — brought it into conflict with publishers, particularly as the digital giant sought to impose its pricing plan.

The dispute with publishers burst into the public's view in May 2014 when it began to block pre-orders of books from publisher Hachette. Among the books included in the block was an upcoming detective novel from J.K. Rowling.

Amazon took its lumps over the negotiations, with authors and much of the publishing industry railing against the company's willingness to use its dominant position in the e-book market to press for cheaper prices.

The move kicked off a multi-month battle between Amazon and Hachette, as the other major publishers also reportedly negotiated for new deals with the tech giant. The conflict drew 900 authors, including John Grisham and Stephen King, to write an open letter in support of Hachette. The authors alleged that Amazon was punishing Hachette authors by refusing to accept pre-orders on e-books for them, refusing to discount the books, slowing e-delivery, and suggesting other non-Hachette authors to customers.

The group Authors United also encouraged writers to send letters to the Amazon board of directors about the Hachette battle. The suggested letter read, in part:

These [Amazon] sanctions have driven down Hachette authors' sales at Amazon.com by at least 50 percent and in some cases as much as 90 percent. These sales drops are occurring across the board: in hardcovers, paperbacks, and e-books. Because of Amazon's immense market share and its proprietary Kindle platform, other retailers have not made up the difference. Several thousand Hachette authors have watched their readership decline, or, in the case of new authors, have seen their books sink out of sight without finding an adequate readership. These men and women are deeply concerned about what this means for their future careers.

Hachette and Amazon came to a resolution in November 2014 with a deal that, at least on the surface, sounds very similar to the HarperCollins deal. The publishers retain ebook pricing, with Amazon getting a cut of the sales.

Penguin RandomHouse is the last publishing giant that hasn't yet signed a deal with Amazon. Media giants Bertelsmann and Pearson merged the two publishers together in 2012 specifically as part of a strategy to gain leverage with Amazon and Apple's powerful iBooks.

Mashable
is a global, multi-platform media and entertainment company. Powered by its own proprietary technology, Mashable is the go-to source for tech, digital culture and entertainment content for its dedicated and influential audience around the globe.